Marjo gave him a flirtatious smile and shrugged.
“I don’t know. I forgot.”
When Heather finally came to her door at five minutes past eight at night, Rip breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t think he’d ever been so glad to see her.
“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to—”
“I went to see him, Rip.”
“Are you crazy?” he said, trying not to shout. “Stand aside, ’cause I’m coming in.”
Heather was wearing a plain white T-shirt and blue yoga pants, and her hair was a haystack, as if he’d woken her. She held an open palm out toward the inside of her apartment. Rip headed straight for the recliner. He sat down and pointed at the little couch to his right. “Sit down.”
Heather sat down on the front edge of the cushion. Her knees were together with her palms flat on top of her legs and her head bowed like a little kid who had just been scolded. “I know, Rip. I’m a terrible cop.” She looked up at him. “But I had to know. Had to see it in his eyes, you know?”
There wasn’t enough activity in Benning Township for cops to show their stuff. Speeding tickets for those who ignored her previous warnings, filling out a report for an occasional scuffle at one of the local bars, or talking to the elementary kids once a year on not taking candy from strangers. That was about it. So Rip didn’t know if she was a good cop or bad cop. But he was pretty dang sure that approaching Kevin at this juncture was a really bad plan.
“I asked him if he’d ever seen it. The gun,” she said.
Rip winced and closed his eyes. If Hart really had anything to do with killing their fathers, Rip knew that big gun with the orange handle was now resting peacefully in the mud at the bottom of Lake Erie.
Heather fell back into the couch and closed her eyes. “What was I thinking?”
“You were emotional. Sometimes it’s hard to control yourself.”
“I was angry,” she said. “I am angry.”
“Did you tell the chief about this yet?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I’m such a moron. Kevin’s probably chucked that gun into the lake by now.”
Rip didn’t have the heart to tell her he was just thinking the same thing. “Listen, Heather. We don’t even know if Kevin did it. Like you said, why would a fifteen-year-old kid shoot his dad? Or your dad, for that matter?”
“I don’t know.” She straightened up. “But I know he did it, Rip.”
“How?”
“I just know,” she said. “And I also know Kevin is the Summer Santa.”
“Hmm,” Rip said. “Maybe.”
“It’s Kevin,” Heather said, “and in some twisted way, it makes him feel better about who he really is. What he’s done. And I’m almost positive that he is in cahoots with that Brianna too on the Summer Santa thing.”
“I think you need to step aside and let somebody else from the department look further into the murders,” Rip said. “If you ever listen to any of my crazy preaching, believe me that I know anger can cloud your judgment, so it’s best somebody else handles it. And once again, we don’t even know if Kevin really did it. So pray about it and take a few more days to absorb all of this. Then tell Reynolds everything you know and then get out. Quit the force. He’ll understand.”
Heather tossed her hands up and her arms landed on her lap. “I just feel like my world is coming to an end.”
“Believe me,” Rip repeated. He reached over and patted her on the leg. “I know how that feels too.”
“Shut up, Rip,” she said. “Will you please quit making jokes about being sick?”
“I was dying to tell you that one.”
“Rip!” she yelled, quickly standing and walking into the kitchen.
He followed her. She stood at the window, face in her hands.
“Hey,” he said, walking up next to her. “I’m sorry.”
She looked up at him and little tears spilled over from each eye. “What are Andy and Judi going to do without you?”
“Andy and Judi made it three years without me,” Rip said. “And now they are better than they’ve ever been. They’ll be just—”
“What am I gonna do?” she interrupted, wiping at her eyes with her index fingers.
“You are going to be—”
“I love you, Gerald Ripley,” she blurted. “What am I going to do without you?”
Heather looked up at him and her eyes were filled with despair. Still, she had never looked more beautiful to him, because beneath that despair, he could feel her hope. Hope that he’d say four words back to her.
I love you too.
The words made it to the edge of his lips and then he choked on them for the same reason he always did. “You are wonderful,” he whispered. “Your whole life is still in front of you and I know you will find that special someone who will know it as surely as I do.”
Heather didn’t say anything. And as she stared at him, he could feel her light green eyes lighting up the edges of his soul. It made him want to live. To be with her.
Rip swallowed and could feel something on his cheek. It was a teardrop. He wiped it away and gave her a sheepish grin.
“Looks like the tough guy has a heart after all,” Heather said, leaning against him, her eyes never leaving his. “So tell me, Rip. Do you love me?”
Rip blinked slowly and could feel another tear weaving its way down his cheek. He ignored it. “You deserve way better than me,” he whispered. “You are and have always been too good for a guy like me.”
She pushed away from him and crossed her arms. “Shame on you, Rip,” she said. “Shame on you. For never letting that be my decision.”
Kevin Hart sat in the dark and laughed at the moon.
He was parked out near the lake, at the very back end of the parking lot of Hart Industries. It was pitch-black, and he was sitting on the hood of his Mercedes. He and Brianna didn’t have an outing planned for that night, so he thought it would be nice to just sit out there in the dark, smoke a cigar, look at the water, enjoy some alone time . . .
And laugh.
He only ever laughed when he was upset. And he only got upset when someone thought that they were ahead of him in the game.
Always stay ahead of them, son . . . always be out front . . . because life is a game and there can only be so many winners . . .
He laughed, thinking about his father this time, instead of the sudden Super Cop, Heather.
Kevin Hart had always tried his best at whatever he did. He had to. His dad expected it of him.
Five home runs in one Little League game.
Youngest Eagle Scout ever in the state of Michigan.
Nothing but As on every report card he ever had until tenth grade.
He could go on and on, but it was never good enough. Even for a kid whose socks were too short, ties were too long, talked too much, didn’t talk enough . . . a kid who did nothing but embarrass his father.
He remembered sitting in his room, staring at the report card. He could still see that terrible grade, sticking out among the As. Madly, he’d tried to work up a good explanation for the B+.
Then more thoughts of life without Dad ran through his head. They had been coming more frequently and were stronger. But at the end of the day—of every day—there was no way out.
Talk of graduating from high school, going to college in a different state, and maybe starting his own business was always extinguished. There were no options, because if he ever got his act together, he was going to go to work at Hart Industries and be his father’s protégé. And maybe, when he was fifty or so, his father would think about letting him take over the company.
It was never up for debate. Kevin was trapped.
He finally decided to tell his father about the bad grade with Mr. Gerisch there. He figured maybe Dad wouldn’t be so hard on him with a police officer around.
By the time he made it downstairs and into the kitchen, he was too afraid to go through with it. He remembered the strange way his
father was looking at him and then how Dad told him to quit bothering them. And as he was leaving the kitchen to go back upstairs, that’s when he saw it.
It was an act of God.
For some divine reason, Mr. Gerisch had placed his service revolver on the kitchen counter.
“Boom boom,” Hart said out loud, remembering picking up the phone and calling the police crying. He had told them he heard two shots and ran downstairs and found them. Then they spent the next three years looking for someone who didn’t exist.
He looked at his watch. It was the one he had taken off his dead father that night. He took another drag off the cigar and then tossed it over the fence into the lake.
And then he thought about Heather and wondered what she knew. Obviously Rip and she had put two and two together, like Fred and Daphne on Scooby-Doo.
The gun had to go. Just like Heather. But not yet.
He smiled, thinking how he would use it just one more time, and how this little problem would soon go away.
THIRTY-NINE
I’m pretty sure that Heather is going to bow out and just let the department look into the whole Kevin thing,” Rip said, sitting across from Pastor Welsh.
“Why in the world would she go and confront him?” Welsh asked. “We should have taken her over to meet with Reynolds right then and there. Either that or taken her over to Canada for a few days and let her clear her head.”
“She still would have said something to Kevin when she got back.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Maybe we’re also making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe the gun’s still in Kev’s boat because he didn’t do it.” Rip leaned back and put his hands behind his head. “God talks to Andy through an iPod. God drops a funky symbolic garden out behind McLouth Steel for us. I am diagnosed with terminal cancer and there is a possibility that Kevin Hart is a murderer. There goes the neighborhood.”
“Life sure seemed pretty simple a couple months ago,” Welsh said. “How you doing with the whole six months thing?”
“It’s surreal,” Rip said. “I don’t think this whole ‘gonna die’ thing has sunk in yet.”
Welsh nodded and parted two stacks of books that were on his desk. “I think I know what you mean, Rip.”
“How?” Rip asked.
“I’m seventy years old,” Welsh said. “And I’m living in the body of a ninety-year-old. All the drinking I did caught up with me a long time ago. I could drop dead at any time. You think you’re the only man who’s thought about his mortality?”
“I hear ya,” Rip said. “But I guess I wasn’t planning on it for a few more years.”
“How about Judi and Andy?” Welsh said. “They seem to be handling everything pretty well.”
“Yeah,” Rip said. “Even though I think Judi’s holding on to a hopeful word from the U of M doctors. We’ve sort of made a pact to stay positive and not focus too much on it, but I guess I’m a little concerned about Andy’s obsession with the flower garden getting me better. He figures it’s a sure bet and doesn’t think he has to worry about anything other than me working to get the bike ready.”
Welsh smiled and nodded slowly. “It’s good to see the boy be optimistic.”
“Hey, I can use all the optimism I can get,” Rip said. He tapped his fingertips together, thinking. “Are you ready for it?”
“For what?” Welsh said.
“Death.”
“Absolutely,” Welsh said with confidence. Then a peculiar, almost puzzled look crossed his face. “Why?”
“Because I’m dying and I don’t want to be dying,” Rip said. “I thought I’d be more . . . settled about the whole thing. You know, as a believer.”
“Not many people want to die,” Welsh said. “But many are ready.”
Rip nodded. “How will I know if I’m ready? I feel like something’s still missing. I know it’s something simple too, and whatever it is that I’m supposed to do . . . I really think it will put my past behind me, once and for all, and make me ready.”
“You’ve said something sort of similar before.”
“I know, sack of flour, no bread.” They chuckled together. “It’s cracked that I’m also only thirty-five. Think my age is making me feel unready?”
“Let me ask you a question,” Welsh said, leaning forward. “One hundred years from now, do you think you and I will be in heaven?”
“Yeah,” Rip said.
“How about a thousand years from now?”
“Yeah,” Rip said, not having the faintest idea where the minister was going.
Welsh tapped at his own chest. “So whether you are an old fart like me, ten years old, twenty years old, or thirty-five years old is irrelevant when you consider that we are only on this earth for a flash compared to the time we will be in heaven, which, by the way, is a lot longer than a thousand years.”
“Like forever,” Rip said.
“Exactly,” Welsh said, smiling. “So in the big picture, there really is no difference in our ages, Rip. Our time here is a flash in the pan.”
“Okay,” Rip said, holding up his hands. “Age doesn’t matter, but I still don’t know how I’ll know if I’m ready.”
Welsh smiled again, but it was one of those smiles that normally accompanied disappointment.
“You’ve got a little work to do, Rip,” Welsh said. “Go home and pray about it. And I’m confident you’ll know when you are ready.”
“When I’m ready,” Rip said. “Andy even told me I’m not ready to go yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“Into the garden.”
Welsh had a puzzled look on his face. “You’re not ready to die and you’re not ready to go in the garden to be healed. Interesting coincidence.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” Welsh said with a suspicious grin. “Like I said earlier, you’ll know when you’re ready.”
“For which? Death or the garden?”
The smile disappeared from the minister’s face and a little chill danced across the side of Rip’s neck.
“Both. Don’t be surprised if they are the same thing.”
FORTY
You are washing this car the second we get back, Andrew,” Mom said, doing her best to weave their white Tempo around the mud puddles.
“Chill out, Mom,” Andy said. She had gotten so much better recently, but she was still pretty much freaking out about a little back-road trek . . .
They were on the path that led back to The Frank and Poet Canal, and despite it being ninety and sunny again, the path was still muddy from another shower that morning.
“Chill out?” Mom echoed. “You are starting to sound like your uncle. What if we get stuck?”
“If Uncle Rip’s Pacer made it out there, we will make it. Don’t worry.”
They had gone clothes shopping for a few hours up at the Southland Mall in Taylor, and even though school was close to a month away, Andy knew Bargain Shopper Judi would have him up there the first day the back-to-school specials started. Uncle Rip had called while they were gone and said he’d driven the Pacer out to the canal, and for them to join him when they got back.
“What’s he up to?” Mom asked as they approached the end path, where the two cornfields gave way to the opening.
“Not sure,” Andy said as they neared the back of Uncle Rip’s Pacer. Andy laughed. The Pacer was covered in mud and looked like it had just finished some off-road event or competition. Probably how the Tempo looked now too.
Mom spotted Uncle Rip first. He was right on the other side of the Pacer. “Oh my Lord,” Mom said. “He’s really going to do it, isn’t he?”
“Yes!” Andy yelled, jumping out the passenger door before Mom’s car had even come to a stop. “It’s awesome!”
Uncle Rip had built a wooden motorcycle ramp out of some two-by-fours and plywood. He was standing halfway up it, smiling, clearly proud of his work, with his chest puffed out and arms crossed.
The ram
p was around fifteen feet long. It was as wide as the triple-stacked pieces of plywood that served as its surface, and Andy guessed it was maybe seven feet high at the far end.
It was aimed over the canal. Right at the two remaining sections that made up the garden.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Mom said, obviously trying to hold back her freaking-outness. “How’d you build it so fast?”
“It was pretty easy to put together,” Uncle Rip said. “It only took me about an hour to frame it up, then a couple more hours to reinforce it.”
Mom walked right past Uncle Rip and put her hand up on the top corner edge of the ramp. She was looking across the canal and her eyes almost looked glassed-over.
“Go, Rip,” she said quickly. “Go right now. Get over there.”
Uncle Rip looked down at Mom. “What’s gotten into you? Aren’t you the same person who just warned me of every peril on the McLouth side of the canal?”
Mom had to brace herself against the ramp. Her eyes were still on the wildflowers and she wasn’t blinking. She kind of had that same vacant look on her face as she did that one day they were on the other side, checking out the garden.
“Get over there,” she repeated. “Get over there right now, Rip. And He will make your cancer go away.”
“Who?” Uncle Rip said.
“Him,” Mom answered, pointing at the flowers.
Andy stepped on the ramp and walked up next to Uncle Rip at the top. “What’s He look like, Mom?”
“I don’t know,” Mom answered. “I can’t see His face.”
“It’s Him, then,” Andy said, wanting another look. He turned to his uncle. “How can Mom see Him and I can’t?”
Uncle Rip shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“Go, Rip,” Mom said. “Please hurry.”
“I promise I’ll go,” Uncle Rip said with a little laugh. “But there’s a little work left to do.”
FORTY-ONE
I felt the exact same way as I did when Andy was calling me using my first and middle names,” Judi said, exiting off I-94 toward the University of Michigan Hospital. They were on their way to get the second opinion, and Rip had no doubt they were going to give the same prognosis. He’d spent the better half of the morning coughing up some scary stuff.
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